Southeast Missouri State football looks to snap three-game losing streak at Tennessee Tech

Nine of the past 11 meetings between the Southeast Missouri State football team and Tennessee Tech have been decided by a margin of seven points or less.

One of the two exceptions came last year when Tennessee Tech picked up its first conference win of the season with a 41-16 defeat of the Redhawks.

"A lot of their players are the same and a lot of our players are the same," Southeast coach Tom Matukewicz said, "so I watched it and turned it off quick and moved on."

The Redhawks will try for a different outcome when they face the Golden Eagles at 1:30 p.m. Saturday in Cookeville, Tennessee.

Southeast takes a three-game losing streak into the game, which will be broadcast online on ESPN3, while TTU has lost two straight to Jacksonville State and Eastern Illinois after handing nationally-ranked Eastern Kentucky its first and only loss so far this season.

TTU ranks eighth out of nine Ohio Valley Conference teams in scoring offense, averaging 16.5 points in conference games. The Golden Eagles (3-6, 2-4 OVC) have 15 turnovers against conference opponents.

"They've turned the football over is one of their main problems," Matukewicz said. "They haven't been able to sustain a lot of drives, so they just kind of shoot themselves in the foot, which has really hurt their scoring opportunities. I think they run a very wide variety of plays. You've got the triple-option with a double slot... you've got the spread, you've got some two-back stuff, so I think they're still trying to figure out who they are a little bit on offense."

The Golden Eagles used two quarterbacks early in the season, with both on the field at the same time and one lining up as a "QW" or quarterback wing, but Darian Stone has since started the last five games.

The senior completed 13 of 22 passes for 135 yards and rushed for 162 yards and three touchdowns against Southeast last season.

The Golden Eagles' Ladarius Vanlier leads the conference in punt return, averaging 17.1 yards per return with two touchdowns. He has returned one kickoff for a touchdown and averages 23.9 yards per return.

"Punting to that guy makes me really nervous, and so we've got some concepts that we're going to try and do that way," Matukewicz said. "Same thing on kickoff -- our kicker's got to have a good day, placing the ball or kicking it out of there. The one thing is their kickoff coverage is last in the league, ours is first in the league, so we've got to be able to make a play on our kickoff team. Vice versa, our kickoff return team's got to make plays. We've got Peter Lloyd going a little bit and so we're hoping to generate some plays on that end."

Southeast punter Alex Knight and TTU punter Jonathan King are the conference's top punters, averaging 41.8 and 41.3 yards, respectively.

Lloyd, a receiver, averages 27.2 yards on kick returns. Lloyd, who's averaging 70 yards receiving per game, will be joined on the field by junior receiver Paul McRoberts for the first time since McRoberts fractured his foot in an upset win against Southeastern Louisiana on Sept. 20. Running back Lennies McFerren, who missed the last game with an ankle sprain, is also expected to be back on the field for the Redhawks on Saturday.

It will be Southeast's first full game without leading tackler, sophomore linebacker Roper Garrett, who broke his leg during the Redhawks' last game against EKU. It was the fourth major injury for the team's defense after losing defensive linemen Selwyn Carrol and Jon Slania to foot fractures and linebacker Chad Meredith to a torn labrum, but Matukewicz said it won't change anything the defense does the rest of the season.

"If you come here in five years you're going to see the same defense like, 'This is who we are, let's get good at who we are and do the best we can,'" Matukewicz said. "I feel like just being a little more simple and not try to think, 'Well, I'm going to call this play because it'll put our players in an even better position.' We're just not good enough to do that. We need to just play what we do and let our players play."

Tennessee Tech coach Watson Brown expects Saturday's meeting on the Golden Eagles homecoming to be a close game and said, "it's like two mirrored teams."

"When I watch them play I see us," Brown said. "I see a hard-playing, hang-in-there [team]. We got behind at Murray, came back and won. We got behind at Eastern Kentucky, we came back and won. I see them doing the same thing. They're just playing their hearts out, very, very aggressive and have a 'don't -give-up' attitude. That's why I think this should be a really good game if we both play solid. ... If both play good, it should be a nail-biter until the end with both of us just really trying to finish it off. That's been the personality, I think, of both teams this year."